Best Laid Plans
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Three conversations, two of which Loras instigated and one he invaded.
1. Chapter 1

It is slow, Loras knows. Sansa tells him that much, even though there is so much else that she either will not or cannot tell him.

Willas tells him nothing at all, says that it is not his place to do so, but there is something in the set of his brother's jaw and the dark circles under Willas' eyes that tell Loras more than even Sansa's softly spoken explanations can

It was different for him and Renly - Loras knew from the very moment he met Renly, when he was a boy of ten, that he loved him. Apparently, it took a long while for his brother and his wife to come to realise the same of each other.

* * *

Sansa laughs hoarsely, mockingly, as she tells him of how infatuated by him she was when she saw him ride in her father's tourney, how elated she was when _she _was the one to receive his red rose.

"You were so beautiful," she sighs, trembling fingers cold against his face. "So beautiful - I remember thinking that you deserved to be sent to deal with the Mountain, because you were so beautiful and _good_. I am glad now that you were not."

She is still too pale, her cheekbones and collarbones too sharp under her clammy skin, but she demanded that she be propped up on her pillows this morning, and none dare risk upsetting her, not now. He should probably wait to do this, but she insisted, and he could not refuse her this, not after it was _his_ actions that put her in this position.

Still, seeing her so unwell would be upsetting under any circumstances, he knows. Sansa is smiles and soft laughter and elegance and beauty, the beauty that he appreciates deeply even if it does nothing to stir him, not truly, and dull eyes and lank hair and grey-tinged skin mark her as something like a stranger, not as the friend he calls his wife.

"I thought myself in love with you, when we wed," she confides as though it is a great joke, her lovely eyes glassy with both tears and exhaustion. "I thought I understood love, but I see now how wrong I was, how wrong I was to be jealous of Renly when I first realised the truth in the rumours - do you hate me terribly, Loras? I don't think I could bear for you to hate me."

"I could never hate you," he promises, and it is true - he resented her, at first, simply for existing, for occupying a space in his life he had once hoped to keep permanently vacant, but there is a sweetness in Sansa that made it impossible for him not to warm to her, at least a little, and that little had become a great deal over their time together. "Are you well enough to keep talking?"

She nods, and swallows to clear her throat before continuing. The effort of speaking is taxing, he knows that, but she is determined to do this now, so he merely dampens a fresh linen and dabs the sweat from her face and neck, and waits patiently for her to speak. He is not good at being patient, he knows that, but he tries, because Sansa deserves it.

"Everything was... Nothing was as I had hoped," she admits. "Well, not quite nothing - Highgarden was more beautiful than I dared dream, and being safe again was something I had long since given up hope of."

Her hair is heavy and greasy when he holds it back so she can retch into the bowl at her bedside, and they do not speak as she catches her breath and he settles her blankets around her once more.

"But you were distant," she says. "I do not blame you, not now that I know the truth of things, but at the time I assumed it was because- because Joffrey was right. Because I was ruined, somehow."

She is kind not to make a mention of the horror of their wedding night, he cannot help but think, but he says nothing. She deserves this chance to explain things to him, after how understanding she has always been of him.

"I was so unhappy," she whispers, and Loras feels ashamed - he has since proved himself a good husband, for all that there is little more than the love of a brother for a sister between them, and he is constantly embarrassed by how poorly he treated her in those early days. As Sansa has proved in a thousand tiny ways, she deserves infinitely better than he gave her, then. "And he was so kind to me, Loras. I- I had been so alone, so _scared, _for so long, that him being kind for no reason other than kindness being so much a part of him..."

"You fell in love with him," Loras says, testing the words and wondering how he is to justify the jealousy and proprietary rage swelling in his gut at the thought of his wife loving another man. He finds himself perversely relieved that the other man is his brother, because the part of him that is protective of Sansa knows that Willas would never willingly allow harm to come to her, and because the idea of his brother finally finding some measure of happiness warms him. "I imagine he was oblivious? He always is, about so many things."

"Mercifully," Sansa tells him, smiling a trembling little smile that is a sickened, sickening echo of her normal glowing smile, and letting her eyes close for a moment. "Oh, Loras, you would have laughed at me for how silly I was - I could hardly speak to him without blushing."

No, Loras thinks, he would not have laughed - he would have been angry, and possibly even hurt, although he has no right to feel any such things, but he supposes he might have come round to the idea without tragedy had he been more aware, had they trusted him.

"He used take you out riding," Loras says. "Didn't he? And you've never liked riding so much, but you always loved riding out with Willas." _I have been a blind, stupid fool._

"Sometimes," Sansa agrees. "Leonette or your mother usually accompanied us - I loved talking with him. I still love talking with him, Loras, he and I are much alike in certain ways, and so different in others-"

"I know," he breaks in, unwilling to hear her extol his brother's many virtues. Her similarities to Willas have always been some of his favourite things about her. "I know, Sansa. You should rest now."

She hesitates a moment before nodding, but she lets him help her lay down without protest - she is too weak even to rearrange her pillows, and her eyes are closed by the time he reaches the door.

He lingers for a moment, watching to be certain that she is still breathing, and then he pulls the door closed behind him as quietly as he can manage.

There is a part of him that wishes to run away from here, from _her, _that wishes never to set eyes on anyone of his family ever again, but that part is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he _must _do otherwise.

He crosses Sansa's solar and, in the hall, turns left towards Willas' rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

Willas is sitting by the fire when Loras enters his solar, head in his hands and sleeves pushed back.

"How is she?"

Loras takes the seat opposite his brother before responding, wondering how best to explain his wife's condition. Sansa is...

"Weak," he says at last. "But she is determined to get better. She will, I think, given time. How is...?"

Willas glances up then, waiting to see how Loras will address the thorniest issue between them - the infidelity he could readily forgive, he has no choice but to do so, given his own habits since he wed Sansa, but the lying, the deceit, the...

"How is the babe?" he asks at last, and Willas' mouth twists down. What had he expected, though? Had he imagined that Loras might actually be able to refer to the babe as Willas' child, to speak of the child his wife had borne, the child that until days ago he had believed to be his own, as his brother's so soon after the truth had come out?

"Mother says he is like Garlan," Willas says quietly, sitting up straight and staring into the fire. "Noisy, and bright for his age. He looks more a Hightower than a Tyrell, I think-"

_- More like me than like you, _Loras hears in his brother's words, and of course the babe looks more like Willas than he could ever look like Loras, of course he looks more a Hightower than a Tyrell because aside from his hair and his smile, both of which he took from Father, Willas is the double of their uncle Baelor -

"- but he has Sansa's hair, and your nose."

It is so difficult to sit here with Willas and discuss the child that is his in name but Willas' in truth, but how can he do anything else when Sansa is only just clinging to her life a few rooms away? How could he do anything else when he is the one who left her thus?

"Sansa was supposed to choose his name," Loras manages. "But I have not asked her yet. I suppose I ought..."

"There is time yet for that," Willas says, and when Loras looks up Willas' head is back, his eyes closed, and Loras notices for the first time just how exhausted his brother seems. _He loves her, too_, Loras cannot deny it, _mayhaps more than I do. _"Loras, I have to ask, forgive Sansa this. I- It was my fault. If there is any blame, let it be put on me. All of it."

"Why did you do it?"

Willas looks agonised, but Loras must know - it is even more important that he understand what drove his brother to this than he understand Sansa's motivations. In fact, he already understands Sansa, at least enough that he has already forgiven her for most of it, but Willas... He cannot understand how his brother was capable of this.

"There's a goodness in Sansa, a- a warmth. I fell in love, Loras. I'd never been in love before, not like you, and it terrified me."

Loras is about to ask how such a thing could scare anyone, before remembering _Sansa is my wife, that's why, _and so he says nothing.

"We never wanted to hurt you," Willas says urgently, "but it was as though we couldn't stop ourselves - we resisted for as long as we could, I swear it to you, but then, the day Gardener threw me-"

Loras remembers that day, the habitual terror of anything more happening to Willas that had overwhelmed them all when he and Sansa had returned from their ride out south-west, Willas tied to his saddle and slumped over his horse's neck and Sansa, for the first time, showing the pragmatism that had truly won Mother over.

"Sansa sat with me for hours that night," he says. "Remember, because the maester said I had to be kept awake because I hit my head so hard. And we... I never meant for her to find out how I felt, Loras, I never meant for any of this. The babe- the babe _should _be yours, I know that, but..."

"But you love Sansa," Loras finishes when Willas adds nothing more. "You realise that you will never be able to make her your wife, and even if I were to die and you to wed her, you would not be able to claim the child as your own?"

"And you must realise that with Garlan in Brightwater, little brother, _you_ are my heir. Sansa's son will someday be Lord of Highgarden, regardless of which of us dies first."

Loras cannot speak for a moment, because...

"But surely you will marry."

Willas shakes his head, laughing even though there are tears shining in his eyes.

"How can I, when the woman I love is wed to my brother already?"


	3. Chapter 3

Loras, as is his habit, makes his way to Sansa's room directly after breaking his fast - it is early yet, but he likes to be with her when she wakes, likes to have as much time with her as he can now.

The maester says that it is only a matter of time, and he hates himself for that.

Today, though, she is awake - he can hear the soft murmur of her hoarse voice through the cracked-open door, but also the low rumble of Willas', which causes a surge of anger that he has to force down.

When he pushes open the door, he does not know how to react - there is Willas, lying on the bed where Loras took Sansa's maidenhead, Sansa lying back against his chest and their son in her arms, Willas' arms around hers to be certain she does not drop the babe.

_Mayhaps Willas is right, _he thinks, _mayhaps this is how it ought to have been_.

They both look up when they notice him, look up and stop speaking, and he feels like an intruder - which is ludicrous. Sansa is _his_ wife, regardless that she has cuckolded him with his brother.

"Have you chosen a name?" he asks, hoping he does not sound as petulant as he feels. "For the babe, I mean."

Sansa has to clear her throat before she can speak, but she also smiles anxiously, as if hoping he will approve. "Edwyn," she says. "Do you like it?"

_What does it matter to me, _he thinks, and he wonders if he would have cared at all that Sansa had a lover if it had been anyone but Willas.

"It has a ring," is what he says, and he hates that they look so right together, his wife and his brother and his nephew. "Edwyn Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden."

Sansa's eyes tighten, and Willas frowns - but Loras does not care what Willas thinks just now, because he still has not forgiven his brother for falling in love with _his_ wife (even if he was in love with Margaery's husband, once).

"It has a ring."

* * *

Loras holds Edwyn close as they lay Sansa in the ground on a fittingly cold day, and stands with Garlan between himself and Willas.

Later, when Edwyn is with his wet-nurse, Loras sits with Willas and tries to find the right words.

"If I hadn't lost my temper," he tries. "When I found you together, if I had held my temper, she wouldn't have fallen-"

"It's pointless now, Loras," Willas says, staring blank-eyed into the fire. "I could argue that had I held myself in check, there would never have been an _us_ for you to find together. What point is there in assigning blame?"


End file.
